


the mortifying ordeal of being known

by idontreallylikebutterflies (Laulerelelere)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AU in which the Mighty Nein have a completely eventless year after the war ends, Forgiveness, Friendship, Kindness, M/M, Teasing, Trust, Wizard Yearning, set after the events of Campaign 2 episode 97
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 07:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23008120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laulerelelere/pseuds/idontreallylikebutterflies
Summary: The Mighty Nein love each other, but they also spend most of their time between insults and teasing. Essek wants to know them, and wants to understand their contradictions, but mostly Essek wants to deserve to be known by them.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss
Comments: 27
Kudos: 528





	the mortifying ordeal of being known

**Author's Note:**

> The working title for this was "Essek is thirsty for knowledge about the mighty nine and also for Caleb". Enjoy!

The Mighty Nein have absolutely no sense of privacy with each other. It's something Essek had realized, slightly, on a subconscious level more than anything else, but it becomes painfully clear when they travel. They are all beginning to get prepared for the night, Caleb's dome cramped and—stifling, he would say, if he didn't appreciate these people so much. 

"I'm gonna go take a leak," Beau says, stands up and waits, just staring at her friends for a second until—

"Oh, I'll go with you," Nott says. 

"Me too," Fjord, who Essek has always thought of as someone extremely shy, chirps.

No one else bats an eyelash. 

"Is that a code for a secret conversation?" Essek asks, realizing he is not going to going to get answers to questions that haven't been asked. "I would not have been offended if they had just said they needed to talk in private. It's only understandable, actually. We started traveling together yesterday." 

"Why would piss be a code for anything?" Jester seems confused. 

Essek feels childish, and kind of helpless. "They left in a group?" 

"So?" Jester's head is tilted in a 45 degree angle, her eyes wide open. She gasps, excited. "Essek, did you think it was code for a threesome? Did you think they were all gonna make out?" 

"I did not. I merely thought—"

"It's for protection," Caleb explains, taking him out of his misery. "It would be stupid to get attacked while you go to the bathroom because you left on your own.”

“Oh.” 

“Also, we are not subtle people,” Caduceus calms him. “If we wanted to have a conversation about you behind your back, you would know.”

“And we have decided to trust you. You have done nothing to betray that trust since yesterday. Relax,” Caleb orders, softly.

Essek supposes he is right: the peace conversations ended three days ago. Then they came back, and The Mighty Nein asked him to travel with them, said that they still trusted him, just not being alone for long periods of time. Essek understood. More than understanding, Essek didn’t have anything else to do. Now, he is sleeping in the woods with a group of people who Essek wants so badly to deserve, and he feels so, so out of place.

***

They like to travel by foot or horse, sometimes, when they have the time. It surprises Essek, who offered to transport them wherever it was needed.

“Do you have to get back to your job right now?” Yasha asked. Essek didn’t—he had lied to the Bright Queen, told her that the Mighty Nein required his assistance while traveling, and that it would have been a disservice to refuse. To the Dynasty, the important task at the moment was to deal with the parts of the country which had been affected by the war. His job was unrelated to that, and he had been restlessly working for the Queen for more than thirty years straight. She had easily accepted.

And the Mighty Nein had decided that there was no reason to rush. In all honesty, maybe traveling is not the part that they like. They do not enjoy to be still in one place for more than two weeks, not when their social acquaintances are so extended across the map. 

They are in a rented cart, and he still does not know where they are going. It’s maybe a punishment for his thirst for knowledge, or maybe no one in the group has the attention span to listen to him ask a question for two seconds. They travel through the Empire, Essek under a parasol, or looking for shadows. They start adapting their schedule so they travel a little further into the night than the Mighty Nein are accustomed to, just so they can rest under the trees during the hours when the sun is the harshest, when it affects him the most. 

Essek is so, so thankful for these people.

One day, they are napping in the side of the road, the sun shining in the sky, Essek sitting a little apart from the group, when Frumpkin approaches him. Essek is perceptive. Perceptive enough to know that this means Caleb is observing him, and seeing something that worries him. He pets the cat—a small bird, right now—and looks at Caleb, who is actually standing up, and who starts walking towards him when Essek makes a hand motion for him to. 

“You seem troubled,” Caleb states. It’s an offer, for him to talk if he wants to. To deny it, if he doesn’t, but it doesn’t feel right to lie to the Mighty Nein, these days. 

“I have been thinking about—about my past, I suppose. About what I can do to make up for it.”

“The only thing we can do to make up for our past mistakes is to be better people,” Caleb says. Maybe he means the whole group, maybe he only means both of them. Essek doesn’t know, but it’s not the important part of what he said. 

“What I did—” Essek starts, and every word he says feels like it has been punched out of him, painful, devastating. And then they stop coming, a blank space in his brain, the only word he can think of a big 'BUT' all in red. "I suppose you are not wrong."

"You can take time to think," Caleb whispers softly. He is looking towards the sleeping group, but Frumpkin is nuzzling his head against Essek's elbow. "You don't have to decide right now what being a better person means to you, especially if you want to make a bigger gesture. You said once that the smart thing to do before embarking on a dangerous quest is to be the most prepared you can be, didn’t you?"

Frumpkin’s wings flutter against Essek’s hand when he brushes them, calming as he starts softly petting him. “I don’t know how to prepare myself for this.” A soft objection. “And I don’t have any big ideas.”

“I don’t think you prepare yourself to make choices. You just make them, little by little, and then maybe one day you’ll have an idea of a big, good thing you want to do.” Caleb’s hand brushes his elbow, near Frumpkin’s head. “Don’t jump into the lake, but don’t stay petrified, five feet away from it. Walk along the shore.” 

Essek is terrified, but he moves his hand so his fingers will brush against Caleb’s. He nods.

***

They continue to travel together. Essek sits on the corner of the cart, near the horses, not touching anyone. He is the only one, he realizes. There is at least one point of contact between every member of the Mighty Nein—Caduceus sitting on the front to lead the horses, Jester in a very precarious position so she can lean over and play with his hair. Beau’s right foot is touching one of Jester’s legs, while the left one brushes against Yasha’s, right in front of her. Yasha’s arm is brushing against Fjord’s, whose knee knocks against Nott’s. Caleb is sitting next to Beau, his hand on her shoulder while Frumpkin flies ahead, but there’s also Veth’s hand while she leans over, trying to tickle his leg for some reason Essek didn’t pay attention to. 

It’s like a big chain, of love and trust. Of—

“Are you okay, man?” Beau asks, her hand suddenly smacking on his shoulder. “You seem kinda distracted.”

Essek tries not to think about the symbolism, now. 

***

They reach Veth’s town, eventually, which apparently was their destination all along. 

“What were we doing here, again?” Fjord asks. It takes a couple of seconds for anyone to respond. 

“Veth is looking for a new house now that the war is over and her husband can come back here with Luke,” Beau reminds him, and various members of the group go ‘oh, right’. 

There are a few houses for sale, and the Nein all give Veth their opinions, who opposes to all of them, and looks for the weirdest one. She then seems to remember she has a small child, and settles for a small house with a basement, similar to what they had before, apparently. It’s cheaper than expected, and everyone starts to chip in even though Veth swears she’ll have enough money if she just waits a couple of months, and Essek just. Gets out his gold pouch and contributes as much as he can, as if he were a part of the group.

No one questions him, but Jester holds his elbow on her hand as they leave, rushing him, and it feels like he has earned it.

***

It takes a couple of months before they go back to pick up Veth’s husband and kid. They enter the Lavish Chateau, and Jester starts running upstairs, everyone following behind. “Mama!”

A red-skinned tiefling woman is hugging Jester when they enter the room, and Veth hugs her husband, too, and then her kid when he arrives. 

“I didn’t know you were coming!” Veth’s husband says, excited.

Jester makes eye contact with Fjord over her mother’s shoulder, showing all her teeth in a grimace, practically screaming ‘I MADE A MISTAKE!’ without saying a word out loud. 

“I thought Jester was gonna message you to tell you to pack?” 

“I—Well, you know, I was out of spells or I had very little spells left I don’t know I don’t remember?” She babbles.

“She forgot,” Veth summarizes, and her husband chuckles. 

“It’s okay, I don’t have much anyway. We can pack in two minutes, and Jester can spend time with her mom, maybe?”

“We are not in any kind of rush,” Essek reminds them. “We could leave tomorrow.” 

Jester smiles brightly, and he knows they are all going to agree.

***

They decide to walk around town—they keep bothering Fjord about the fish market, and Jester wants to play a prank on some nobleman or another. They wait downstairs to leave her alone with her mom, and when she comes back she starts guiding them out the door.

“Where is Veth?” Essek asks, realizing there’s one person less than there should be. 

"Oh, Veth is not coming. She's fucking her husband," Beau says, absolutely deadpan. Essek is used to the Mighty Nein's brand of humor now, so he chuckles. What he is not used to is to no one else—especially Jester— joining him. "I'm serious, man." 

"I— Pardon me?" 

"Actually, Cad!" She says, completely turning around on her seat to glare at him. "Remember when you told me you always heard your parents having sex because your house was small? That fucked me up, man."

Essek looks towards the top of his parasol in despair, and when he looks down Caleb is grinning towards him, small but amused. 

***

They take a walk, talking about the performance of the Ruby of the Sea the day after, about maybe staying and catching it. Jester suddenly gasps and turns towards Essek.

“Essek! This was your first time meeting her, right? What do you think of her?” Jester asks.

“She seems like a lovely woman,” Essek reassures her. “It seems like she is a very good mother to you, too.”

“Yes she was!” She says, proud. “You have to see her act.” 

“I cannot wait.”

“Man, Essek, you sound so excited. Do you have the hots for Jester’s mom?” Beau jokes, and the fact that they have a level of friendship where they can rib him about information of him that they know is not real makes him feel—seen. Known.

“Yeah, Essek, do you have ill intentions here?” Fjord asks, a wide smile on his face. 

“I don’t really have an interest in women. At all,” Essek informs. 

“Oh, man, you can’t just stop our motherfucker jokes like that,” Beau complains. She elbows him on the side, but she’s smiling, and Essek offers her a small smile, too.

***

That night, they all share four rooms at the Chateau. Essek doesn’t mind sharing—he prefers sharing with the boys, because Jester wants to know if he hovers over the bed when he sleeps and everyone is making a big deal out of not telling her and keeping it a secret. So he sleeps in a room with Caleb and Fjord, and in the morning Fjord leaves early to have breakfast. 

"There are not many secrets within your group, are there?" Essek asks, alone with Caleb for once. 

"Our group,” Caleb corrects him. Not heatedly, but not calmly, either. “When you confront the demons of your past with a group of people you are forced to let them know about parts of yourself you prefer would remain hidden," Caleb muses. "Though there are still many things that we, as individuals, don't know about each other."

"I do not doubt it. Nonetheless, that is not what I meant."

Caleb's face has a curious expression on it. "Oh?" 

"In terms of privacy, and time apart from each other—you do not seem to get much of either." 

"I guess that's true, if easily explainable. We are adventurers, it's best if we know where everyone is all the time so as not to worry. It may seem—co-dependent, maybe, to others. Maybe it is, but that keeps us safe."

"A clever choice, then. But still, a little—overwhelming, isn't it? To have everyone know what you're doing and who you're doing it with at all times? Do you not have a way of keeping secrets from each other? If someone disappears without notice, what do you do?" 

"If it's in the middle of the night? Then it's bad. If it's in the middle of the day? Then they're probably either making errands or fucking," Caleb says, quite bluntly.

"Ah, that is actually what inspired this line of thinking. The—dilemma with Nott and her husband which happened recently.”

“Again, we live in close quarters.”

It is at that point when Essek realizes that dating Caleb would mean having this dynamic with the Nein. It is not a pleasant thought. It is not unpleasant, either, but it leaves him scrunching up nose, frowning, and — maybe it is slightly unpleasant.

***

"We should go to Zadash! The Harvest Festival must be soon, right?" Jester says. "Have you ever been to Zadash, Essek?"

"Only in passing, actually."

"Oh, you're gonna have so much fun! You can meet my dad and we can go—"

She goes on and on about the things they will do, and it’s enough to make everyone excited to go. So they leave, but it isn't until they are about to reach the tavern of Jester's father that Beau pulls him aside. 

"Hey, just a warning? Jester's dad is totally a mob boss."

"I— what?" Essek asks. He finds himself completely out of words too often lately, at least around the Mighty Nein. It doesn't matter, anyway, because Beau has already left. And they convince the Gentleman that he shouldn’t have to give him his blood, so he’s thankful, really. 

***

It is Jester's fault.

"Essek, do you wanna come to the spa with us? It will be super duper fun we just get inside the hot water and have conversations about our feelings." 

"Do we have conversations about our feelings?" Beau asks Fjord, who shrugs.

"I don't think—" He starts. 

"Oh c'mon," Jester interrupts him. "Don't you wanna know our honest opinion about you and tell us all your secrets?"

It seems that at least half of his conversations with the Mighty Nein are about revealing secrets he would rather keep to himself. It's not important, however, because Jester is looking up at him with supplicant eyes and he cannot—

"I guess I could join you for a short while."

Then, they arrive and they all start getting naked around him. It has happened before with some of them—they all have different standards of what is considered acceptable nudity at a hot tub—but not with all of them, and not all at once. Caleb’s gaze drifts towards him, probably making sure that he is okay with this situation, but Essek takes it as a challenge and starts taking his clothes off. 

It’s probably stupid, but if he has learnt something around the Mighty Nein is that he is allowed to be, sometimes. 

***

They sit around, and they do talk about their feelings. It’s nice. Essek enjoys listening to them remember, likes it when they share things about their pasts with him. 

“How did you all meet, anyway?” Essek asks. “All at once, or by small groups?”

“The second one. I wanted to learn magic, I and was on my way to the Academy, thinking that they would altruistically guide me—” Fjord stops just to snort. They all do. 

They tell them the whole story, in group, little by little. There are things that they jump over, things that they don’t want to talk about, but by the time they get out they are starting to overheat. 

He walks up to Fjord once they are dressed, still thinking about something he had said, earlier. “So you really had no way of learning absolutely anything about your magic abilities?” 

Fjord looks startled. “Uh, no. The only place that seemed to have any information about magic was the Academy, but even that place turned out to be absolutely evil. It’s messed up, if you think about it.”

Mhm. 

***

"I'll be back in like, three hours," Beau says, tapping the table where they are all sitting. "Twelve hours, most."

"Where are you going?" Essek asks.

"You don't want to know," Fjord assures him, fast.

"You don't want to know." Caleb doesn't even look up from the place on the table where he is counting his coins—uselessly so, because Essek plans on getting up and paying for them less than a minute from now.

"She's gonna go fuuuuuck," Jester exclaims. 

Fjord puts his head against the table, and makes a sound that is suspiciously close to a groan. Essek agrees.

***

They get drunk together, during the festival. Or the closest to drunk together that they get, because Jester and Caduceus don’t drink, and Veth is trying not to, and Essek is always too eager to drink in every piece of information about the Mighty Nein when he is around them to bother with drinking alcohol. 

“C’mon, man. Tell us. What is your honest opinion about us?” Beau asks.

Essek thinks that they’re great. That their friendship is absolutely necessary to his life. That the way they tease and insult as a way of showing they care about each other makes him ache to be insulted that way. 

Essek is just drunk enough to say, “You know I don’t know what I’d do with myself without all of you.” 

They call him a sappy little shit, but they also start a group hug, so Essek will take the teasing, really. 

***

They go back home. At this point, Essek basically has a room of his own in the Xhorhaus—it’s a guest room, really, but he is the only guest they allow to stay there. It would be sweet, if they didn’t make him go up the stairs without floating, because that would be unfair for everyone else. 

It’s still sweet, if he’s being honest.

"Is everything alright, Essek?" Caleb asks when he sees him standing in the corridor, completely still.

"I just tried to knock on Beauregard's door to talk to her about the book she wanted to borrow," Essek says, still trying to put every piece of information about the Nein he has together. "But both her and Jester screamed that they were naked."

"Oh, that is a code. They are not actually together, I don’t think."

"What?" Essek is starting to think there is no way to win with the Mighty Nein. 

"Whenever we are doing something secret one of them ends up screaming that they are naked, or that they are getting dressed. It’s just a thing they do. They are not dating, not yet, at least.”

“Not yet?” Essek asks, even more confused than he was before.

Caleb makes a pained face. “Don’t ask me about Beauregard’s sex life.”

That is fair.

***

Time is a strange thing. It has been eight months since The Mighty Nein accepted him as an official member of their group, and by all means that should not seem like such a long time. He is almost 120 years old, and the longest he has spent loving a group of people is eight months. It’s sad, maybe, but he is too happy to care. 

They meet his mother, at one point, at a formal function. She is perfectly nice to them, cordial. She treats him the way she has always treated him, tries to ask about his work, and then seems uninterested when he answers. 

“Can I talk to you in private for a second?” She asks. Of course she does.

“Of course,” he says, and they go away, but not far away enough that Caduceus won’t be able to listen in. He knows this, they know he knows this, and they are all going to try to hear everything she says. That’s just who they are. 

“Are you sure you want to be seen with them so often? They are just a group of no ones from the Empire. Remember—”

“Mother,” he interrupts. She expects him to continue, and he isn’t going to, but—“Don’t insult me, and don’t underestimate them.” 

“I just think that you are too young—” Essek looks at her sharply, and she visibly recalibrates on the moment, changes the path of her words. “Oh, honestly, Essek. Ignore me, make your own choices,” she spits, like that is a dreadful thing for him to do.

They walk back to the Nein, and she smiles like she had not been arguing with her son seconds ago. 

“I’m afraid I have to leave, but it has been great meeting you,” she lies. She says goodbye individually to each of the Mighty Nein, and when she reaches Jester, Essek sees the latter whisper. 

He doesn’t hear her, but he could swear she says, “I’m actually from Nicodranas.” The way her mother’s face goes blank would make him smile, if he wasn’t so exhausted.

“Goodbye, mother.” He doesn’t offer a hug, and she doesn’t either, leaves with her head held high. 

"Uh, boy," Caduceus says the moment she’s out of earshot. He almost never sounds like he is being judgmental, but he does now. "She seems like a piece of work."

"Shitty mother, huh?" Beau asks, giving him a pat on the back. 

He is going to deny it, going to say that she is a busy woman who has no time to make small talk. However, he remembers Marion Lavorre's smile when she talked to Jester, and the way Veth and her husband had held each one of Luke's hands while they walked around the streets of their town. "This is the first time I have seen her in at least six months. You can judge for yourself." 

"Six months?" Jester asks. It seems unimaginable to her. She doesn’t even live in the same country as her mother. 

"Closer to a year, probably," he mutters, and accepts the glass of whatever alcoholic beverage Beau is offering him.

***

"You are all so kind," Essek says. They're in the hot tub, and they have been quiet for a while now. They were going to come back last night, but there was an attack in the city where they were staying, some sort of strange monster. The Nein—alongside him, he supposes—helped kill the beast, and then they helped a lost little girl who had been separated from her mom look for her, and when they realized the mom was one of the victims of the attack, they made sure that the girl had a place to stay with her uncle, that she would be okay. 

"We're kind of assholes, dude," Beau says, her eyes completely closed, her head sleepily lulled back. "You just think so because you're too smart for us to bully."

Essek doesn't think so. He has allowed them to bully him into entering the tub for once, he allowed them to bully him into friendship. Although again—maybe that was just the effect their kindness has on him. "You really made sure that little girl had a home. That was kind. You could have just taken her to the city's orphanage and left." 

"We don't like orphanages, man. It was mostly for our own peace of mind." 

"You don't?"

" _I_ don't, really," Fjord pipes up. "I grew up in one. It wasn't—It wasn't the best experience. In Port Damali, at least, the city doesn't really care for its orphans." 

"It's that way here, too, I'm afraid," Essek says. Crossing his mind there are thoughts of fifteen year olds who grew up in orphanages, who realized this wasn't the first life they lived, and who suddenly found themselves with a home for the first time ever. The selfishness of that. "Kids should not live like they’re unimportant. However, it was still a kindness to promise to come back."

"She reminded me of Kiri, kinda," Beau says, and before she can finish the sentence everyone is nodding along. A thought they had all shared, but not out loud.

"You found her a home, too?" It's more a joke than a question, but they all answer with a positive. 

"Oh, Essek, you have never heard the story? Kiri is a little girl we found and, like, she could only repeat what we said but she couldn't form her own sentences and she is so cute—" Jester's words practically pour out of her mouth, so fast, so happy.

"So this isn't the first time you help a little girl in need?" Essek asks.

"We left her with a family. They really needed money, and we gave it to them, and they promised to take care of her. It seems they see her as a daughter, now," Fjord explains.

"So you helped a family, too." 

The Mighty Nein's kindness hits Essek deeply, and always by surprise.

***

"Do you want to meet the eighth member of the Mighty Nein?" Caleb asks. Essek is supposed to be copying a spell, but they have been chatting on and off since he began, and a task that is supposed to take less than an hour has already taken three, and he is only halfway there. 

"I thought Caduceus was the eighth member," Essek states. He knows enough about their history, after knowing them for as long as he has, to know that they had not been travelling together for as long as he had previously figured, but that even in that short period of time there had been losses to their group.

“Ninth, technically. Tenth, if you count Frumpkin as one of the members.”

Essek wants to ask, but Caleb is making that face. That face he makes when Jester starts to ask questions and he doesn’t answer, and he is amused by the questions and determined to stay silent. 

“It would be an honor.”

***

"I can't wait to see her," is all Jester says in the way to the city. They are on a cart, Caduceus on the front with the horses, everyone else sitting down, all touching in at least one place. This time, Essek's leg is brushing Caleb's knee. "Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait."

Essek still wants to ask. He wants to ask so badly, but he has learnt with the Mighty Nein that sometimes you don't have to take learning in your own hands. Sometimes if you wait, knowledge will just unexpectedly fall on your lap.

And so, when Jester is jumping to Beau happily, Essek looks at Caleb, and Caleb leans over, close, so close. "We're gonna go see Kiri," he whispers, barely audible, barely an explanation. 

Essek is going to whisper back, the thirst for knowledge now growing, growing, but—

"Are you insulting me?" Beau calls, sharp.

"Ja," Caleb says, face all serious, and he gets away from Essek once more. 

"Dick!" Beau kicks him on the foot. It is, somehow, fond. 

***

What the Mighty Nein failed to mention is that Kiri is actually a kenku who wants to steal Essek’s heart.

“I am Kiri!” she says, in Jester’s voice. Essek is absolutely charmed. 

“I am Essek. Nice to meet you,” he offers his hand, and she takes it.

“Essek. Nice to meet you,” she repeats, this time in his voice. It feels strange. It’s also sweet. She fits in nicely with the Mighty Nein.

“I’m a friend of the Mighty Nein,” he explains. Jester interrupts him before he can keep talking.

“Oh c’mon Essek! I have mentioned you to her before, you are our friend too.”

Kiri does a little clap to make them pay attention to her. “Welcome to the Mighty Nein!” She shrills in Nott’s voice. Essek lets out the biggest grin and really, his happiness cannot be stopped by the fact that Jester gasps when she sees it. 

***

Caleb's hair has been getting longer. Essek realized a while ago, and Caleb still hasn't cut it. It's messy, sometimes— when they have been traveling for a while, and he puts it up into a bun. Other times it's silky and loose, or covered in flowers, or in a braid when he lets the others mess around with it. 

He spends a lot of time looking at it, which is why it surprises him that he hadn’t noticed before when, while eating a meal, Jester gasps. "Caleb, you have a white hair!" 

"Ja?" He asks. Starts looking around his low ponytail, unable to find it on his own. Jester helps him.

"Man, you're getting old," Beau says. 

"I have several white hairs and I'm not old," Fjord complains. 

"Right," Beau answers, dismissive, and they start play-slapping each other. For once, Essek is not dumbfounded by the nature of the Mighty Nein, because Caleb is still looking at the white hair. Essek is, too.

He thinks he has taken enough time, now.

***

When he makes his choice, he calls Caleb to his house. He has been cooped up inside his tower for exactly eight days, enough that Jester sent him a message asking whether he was fine (Hi, Essek! Are you okay? Do you hate us now? We haven’t seen you in a while are you sick and just pooping all the—). It surprised him, but then he realized that he does not remember the last time he spent an entire week not seeing the Nein while they were staying at the Xhorhaus. He reassured her, and then the next morning asked Caleb to come over. 

"We were worried about you," Caleb says after being welcomed in, another question that is more a choice for him to make than anything else. "You look tired." 

"I needed time to think," he says. He guides Caleb towards the tower, and he can see in Caleb's eyes the wish to ask. He keeps it in, until they are sitting down. 

"I have been thinking, for months, about what I should do. You all—You all deal with your pasts by being better every day, but what I did was not—It was a very big mistake. I do not wish to repeat it." 

"You wouldn't," Caleb says, casually confident. A part of the trust he has earned in this year of living and fighting alongside them. "You won't."

"I wouldn't," he agrees. "However, I still wish to make up for it. I might be an overachiever, but I want to do the most amount of good I can do with my resources. I have spent months thinking about my options. Going to prison, and allowing myself to be locked up to think about my mistakes for the rest of my life is completely useless. And what you all do, the fighting, the politics—that helps a lot of people. You have made the lives of so many people better, and I have helped for almost a year. However, I want something that uses my specialties, something that makes me actively implicate myself and not just follow along with all of you." 

Caleb stays in silence, but nods. It's encouraging, but it also seems like he is trying to puzzle the pieces of what he said together, and is coming up with the wrong image. Essek takes a breath.

"I want to create a place of learning. One that teaches students about the morality of magic, but also about the source of their powers. I want to avoid people making the same mistakes I did out of a hunger for knowledge. I want a school, not only for kids, where everyone feels comfortable. Where knowledge and paper and ink are distributed for free. I want it to be a place where one can attend without paying—I have the money to keep it going for at least a century, maybe more. I want to put something good out in the world, and this is something that the world desperately needs."

Caleb is smiling. He is looking at Essek, and he is smiling, and he puts his hand on Essek's knee, gives it a light squeeze. "That's an amazing plan.”

"I want your help," Essek interrupts, because he had made a pause, but he wasn't done with his speech. "All of you, of course, but especially I want you to help. You are an amazing wizard, and you have taught people before, too, Veth has told me. I want this to be something we—share." 

Caleb makes a pause. "Really?" 

Essek nods softly, looking at Caleb's eyes. Hoping that he understands that this is not only about the school, he lowers his hand and squeezes Caleb’s. 

Caleb seems at a loss for words. One of the most eloquent men Essek has ever met seems unable to remember how to speak. Essek would find it romantic, if he wasn’t so nervous. He wants to start taking it back, and maybe Caleb sees it in his eyes, because he puts his left hand against Essek’s cheek, and uses the right one to balance himself on Essek’s knee while he makes their lips meet. 

“You are a wonderful man, Essek Thelyss,” Caleb whispers, raw with emotion.

“I am trying to be,” Essek admits, admittedly tearful. 

He kisses Caleb again, and again, a promise of a future together. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all liked it! I wrote this in a day. This has been the inside of my brain since the episode aired, non-stop. Comment/give me kudos if you enjoyed it!


End file.
